Gary Barlow has shrugged off plans to fly to the US for the judges’ houses stage of The X Factor, so as not to miss the impending birth of his fourth child.

Gary Barlow will reportedly remain in Europe for the X Factor judges houses in case his new daughter puts in an appearance (Picture: Bigpicturesphoto.com)

Producers had reportedly been hoping that the Take That singer would take his hopefuls to New York, having chosen his finalists in Los Angeles during last year’s series.

However Gary has now told them that he does not want to be more than a few hours away from London, so that he can leave at a moment’s notice if his wife Dawn – who is due to give birth to a girl at the same time as the judges’ houses stage – goes into labour.

‘Gary’s daughter is due to arrive at exactly the same time the judges’ houses are set to be filmed,’ a source told The Sun.

‘He is really torn – he wants to be with his acts but he knows he can’t miss his daughter’s birth,’ the insider added.

‘You could see Gary making a hospital dash on the show. This really is reality TV.’

Caroline Flack tweeted a photo of herself with Gary as boot camp continued in Liverpool (Picture: Twitter)

Gary had previously expressed worries that his wife would not be happy with his work schedule, after he recently spent six weeks on a tour of the Commonwealth as well as organising the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert.

‘Because I’d done a tour last year than gone on X Factor, I felt like divorce would be filed if I told my wife I was going on this trip,’ he admitted.

Gary joined fellow judges Tulisa Contostavlos, Nicole Scherzinger and Louis Walsh at the boot camp stage of the show in Liverpool this week, as the remaining hopefuls were whittled down to the final 32.

The week has already been a difficult one for the remaining acts, with 60 of them being axed on the first day of boot camp before they had even sung a note.

According to reports the judges will find out today which categories they will be mentoring this year.